


Things you said...

by TenTonParasol



Category: Star Wars Legends: Republic Commando Series - Karen Traviss
Genre: F/M, Sometimes angst. Sometimes fluff.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-09
Updated: 2017-07-19
Packaged: 2018-11-29 19:17:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,391
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11447343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenTonParasol/pseuds/TenTonParasol
Summary: A collection of moments centered on what Captain Ordo Skirata and Agent Besany Wennen have said to one another. Set across the timeline of their relationship.





	1. Troubled Minds Bring Troubled Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ordo has some interesting sleep habits, Besany learns. prompt: ...in your sleep.

_Rude_ was the first thought on Besany's mind as Ordo pulled her out of a dream she already forgot. _Where's the polite man I fell in love with_ was the second, and _that's unfair_ was right on its heels. Ordo would never wake her this roughly in the middle of the night. Not without good reason.

If only she could figure out that reason.

He spoke at her fast in hushed, unfamiliar syllables, hissing them together and hitting consonants sharp. They were questions, and he's increasingly insistent for an answer; tone communicated so much. She focused, thinking maybe interrupted sleep prevents her from recognizing the words, and after a moment of untangling the sounds, she realized he's speaking Mandalorian. His people's tongue.

A language she could barely count in right now.

"I can't un—"

" _Shhhhev'la!_ " The word was easy to guess at, but the finger he pressed to his lips confirms the translation. _Be quiet? Why?_

She listened for some hint. Voices, too far away to be of relevance. Door slammed elsewhere on the floor. Her heart beat fast, and she gasped a little for breath. Ordos hushed her again, more quietly, and she held her breath.

He looked sideways, surreptitiously glancing over his shoulder. The bedroom door's open—as it always was.

" _Tion'cuy at ba'slanov?_ " he whispered. He tilted his head by the smallest degrees, listening to a silence that grows heavier with each moment his question goes unanswered. He asked again, rising tone more emphatic than before. " _Tion'ad?_ "

Questions, more questions. She caught the important word. "Who?" she whispered.

"They're locked," he said, accent thick. "We're fine."

Her heart rate rested at the sound of _fine_ , even if he remained stubbornly beyond her comprehension, even in Basic. "Who's _they_?"

Speeder lights glared through the blinds into the room. The flare backlit Ordo into silhouette. He flinched, the speeder passed and the light went, quick like lightning, but he held his eyes tightly shut for a moment too long. He refocused on her. Perplexed, almost as if he forgot she's in the bed with him.

Ah, no, he focused on a spot somewhere behind her eyes. Unsettling.

 _He's not awake_.

She brushed his hair back and pressed the back of her hand to his forehead. "Alright, sweetheart." His skin was cool to touch. She tucked a lock behind his ear, and she extended the motion to cup his jaw against her palm. "Just go back to sleep."

He voluntarily lay down. No fuss. No mumbling in any language. Just settled in easy close beside her again.

Besany ran her fingers through his hair, hoping to soothe the paranoia that strung these questions together in troubled sleep. Not that she could say he's asleep again—he wasn't truly awake to begin with—but she judged that he's properly asleep this time and pulls the covers over his head, as he did himself hours ago. His breathing slow and deep, at least.

She swung a leg out of bed, stopped to check on him. She judged correct: not the barest stirring. She pressed on.

The short hall was darker than the bedroom, and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. It's empty. As expected.

Or, thought she expected.

 _Ordo was talking in his sleep._ She's certain. But neither the voice in her head nor Ordo's thick _We're fine_  were reassuring now in the apparently empty hall.

She drew her fingers across the short wall, the touch reassuring, until the wall ended into the open space of her apartment. Long sight lines into an empty home. Expected, too. She thought of gurlanin and cameras and the deep wide world of subterfuge and spy work—and of the intelligence agent curled soundly under her sheets.

Visibly empty meant little these days.

Still, she checked the doors, front door, balcony. They're locked—Ordo was right about that, she supposed. Unsatisfied, she lapped the apartment twice, touching all of the empty surfaces just to feel them under her fingers and be certain of them with more than one sense. The exercise did little other than exhaust her with misplaced paranoia and build a list of places to clean sometime in the week.

 _He's just talking in his sleep_ , she reminded herself as she rubbed dust between her fingers. It's a bit of a problem, if he's going to wake her up and fuel her nightmares like that, but one disconnected from all the others plaguing her in the day.

A novel problem. Ordo likes novelty, didn't he?

It's almost something to laugh at. She didn't, in case it woke him.

She returned to the bedroom. Besany closed the door behind her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Mando'a_
> 
>   1. _Shev'la_ \- Silent. Meant as _Be silent!_
>   2. _Tion’cuy at ba’slanov? Tion'ad?_ \- Who's there at the door? Who? There is no word for door listed in the Traviss direction, so I developed one working from my development of words to enter and to exit. See [this work for information on to enter and to exit](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10932579/chapters/24476847).
> 



	2. Cafmaker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ordo thinks it's quite rude to ask Besany to make them all caf after they've ruined her night, him especially. prompt: ...when we first met.

It seemed discourteous to make a guest prepare caf for everyone, especially when that guest couldn't rise to her feet without pain, courtesy of those she'd be serving caf to. It bothered Ordo more than he expected.

He sought her in the kitchenette off the common hall, and he found Besany had her head bowed, one arm braced against the counter, the other gently cradling her ribs. Rough night still ongoing. He dallied by the door to keep his distance. Not that there was much distance to be had in these tight quarters. Qibbu didn't want anyone drunk on the luxury of space, apparently.

"I can make caf." He kept his voice soft, but still, she jumped. He held up his hands, gesturing apology, gesturing he meant no harm. Very much necessary after all she's seen tonight—after all she's seen him threaten tonight.

Slowly, he walked into the kitchen, moving along the periphery of the room, giving her as much space for as long possible. "You should, ah…" He cleared his throat. He struggled to find the simplest words for her now—a trouble he didn't have not as Corr, not as an intel agent. "You should lie down for the night."

"I'm fine." She stood tall. _What a tenacious one._ Still, she glanced warily at the cabinets.

"Point blank with a PEP laser could've been fatal." He came beside her at the counter and opened a cabinet to set out mugs: thirteen were here, Fi and Sev should be back soon for fifteen, Boss and Scorch and Fixer were asleep so twelve… "Not that General Tur-Mukan knew it _could_ kill you, but—" …wait, Fixer had just woken up, so back where it started with thirteen, no, Corr said he didn't want any so it's twelve. "Would you like some caf, ma'am?"

"No, thank you." Eleven. "And, as I said to Kal, call me Besany."

"Besany." In his own voice for the first time, her name was soft on his lips. The fluttering made him wish the room was bigger. He focused on arranging the mugs, all identical, on the narrow counter. Two rows of fives, soldierly straight. It left one mug lonesome. He reached into the cabinet for another. "Are you sure you wouldn't like any caf?"

"You tell me to get some sleep, then you insist on caf, Captain."

"Tea is the optimal suggestion. I can make tea as well." He prayed to the forgotten gods of his people that he wouldn't need to rummage through the main kitchen downstairs for it. "If you like, you may call me Ordo."

She smiled, and she managed to radiate warmth from underneath all her exhaustion.

"I mean it." He rubbed at imaginary water spot on the rim of the unnecessary mug with his thumb. "You should rest. You look tired. The room at the end, on the left. It's not great, but the blankets are clean. I've made sure of that. Nobody will bother you." He shrugged. The motion felt awkward. "Actually, I'll probably bother you to bring in the tea. If you're having it."

The electric kettle hummed to itself while it worked at a leisurely pace.

She ran her hands over her cheeks. She paused, hands along her jaw framing her face, her shoulders not exactly held straight back—and she considered him a moment. She dropped it all with a short sigh, barely more than an exhale. "Tea sounds great."

She retreated from the counter and stopped at the door to point down the hall. Frankly, it was the only direction to go in.

He nodded, then he was alone.

There. Twelve. Even.

Maybe he should've wished her goodnight.


End file.
